[nabs-l] Blind people being taught social skills

Sat Dec 3 18:00:18 UTC 2011

Hi Bridgit and all,
Nicely said. Bridgit, since you have been both blind and sighted your
perspective is very informative and valuable to us.
There are lots of assumptions floating around in the minds of both
blind and sighted people about how blindness changes a person or about
how blind and sighted people differ from one another. These
assumptions are limited in their accuracy because many of us have not
experienced both sight and blindness, and so cannot make fair
comparisons. Our assumptions tend to be biased in the direction of
what we have experienced or what we know most about, and we think less
about those factors that we know less about.
There is also a psychological phenomenon called illusory correlation,
which basically means that people tend to associate uncommon
characteristics (such as blindness) with uncommon behaviors (such as
nose-picking etc.) It is easy for us to think of blind people who pick
their noses but less obvious that there are sighted people who pick
their noses too, and blind people who don't. Because we tend to
believe that people with uncommon characteristics, like blindness,
exhibit uncommon behaviors like nose-picking, if we meet a blind
person who engages in nose-picking we tend to attribute that behavior
to blindness and come up with a reason why blindness would "cause"
nose-picking (i.e. reasoning that the blind person doesn't know other
people can see him/her doing it). What we forget is that the behavior
could stem from other causes having nothing to do with blindness.
It is easy for sighted people who only know a few blind folks to
attribute anything unusual those blind folks do to their blindness. As
blind people we are often taught by the "blindness system" to focus on
how we are different from the sighted, and unless we know how sighted
people act, it is easy for us to fall victim to the same biased
thinking. For example, I admit I made the same assumption about my own
random smiling being due to blindness. I honestly had no idea that it
happened to sighted people too, and my sighted family and friends
always seemed so amused and surprised when I would randomly smile,
like they hadn't seen it before, so I assumed it was due to blindness.
This illusory correlation definitely promotes misconceptions and
stereotypes. It can also be problematic when parents of blind children
assume any delays or weird behavior of their children is due to
blindness and so don't check to see if their kids have other
disabilities or correctable issues. For example, I know a mother from
another list who has a blind son who exhibited several developmental
delays, which she believed were caused by his blindness. It wasn't
until her son had turned 3 and she attended a conference with other
families of blind kids that she realized her son's delays weren't
shared by the other children. It turned out he has an additional
neurological condition that co-occurred with the gene causing his
blindness. Shortly after this diagnosis, she learned that her son had
been having silent, untreated seizures in the language center of his
brain, causing damage which eventually left him completely nonverbal.
I know this mother now wishes that she could have learned about these
additional disabilities sooner so that her son could have begun
getting the therapies he needed. This is a tragic and extreme example,
but there are many times when parents assume their children's
difficulties are caused by blindness and, thus, don't address
alternative causes of the problems. It can also be tragic when parents
or teachers hold low expectations because they assume any failure to
reach higher standards is due to blindness and thus insurmountable.
I think it is important for both blind and sighted to acknowledge we
don't know everything about blindness, and that blindness affects
everyone differently.
Best,
Arielle

On 12/2/11, Bridgit Pollpeter <bpollpeter at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Tara and others,
>
> As a former sighted person, trust me, nothing you described is unique to
> blind people. The reasoning behind the behavior may be different, but
> the behavior itself is not.
>
> Since becoming blind, it has been very interesting to me to learn how
> many blind people think many behaviors and mindsets are unique to
> blindness. I think so much of what we do is attributed to our blindness
> even though sighted people do the exact same things. When I was sighted,
> if I smiled because I was daydreaming, people most likely thought I had
> just remembered something happy, or was thinking of a moment that made
> me smile. Now as a blind person, if I randomly smile, people may think
> it's something blind people do- make random facial expressions. For me,
> I'm not making random facial expressions, but am simply having a nice
> thought, just like I did when sighted.
>
> I think when we, blind people, start to attribute to much to blindness,
> we are in danger of fueling misconceptions and stereotypes. There are
> behaviors some blind people exhibit that is due to never learning how
> others do it, which is how most sighted people pick up behaviors, but we
> can't always say it's unique to being blind. Even though the friend
> didn't quite understand how the angle of her body still made the soda
> can visible, we can't necessarily say that had she been sighted, she
> would have hid the can better. I've been with plenty of people, sighted,
> who have had similar things happen.
>
> And if a sighted person thinks they don't exhibit similar behavior, they
> are an idiot, smile! Nose picking, pulling wedgies out, leaving dog poo
> on the ground- no, not everyone is silly enough to do these things in
> public, but most of us daydream and will smile or have some "random"
> expression; many of us have a different, or goofy, expression for
> different things.
>
> I often have a crooked smile, like the actress Katie Holmes, meaning I
> literally will smile with only half of my mouth. Not sure how this works
> physically, but trust me, it's how I smile, grin. And I've been grinning
> like this for years even when I was sighted. My husband, who was once
> sighted too, rarely smiles, and usually looks like my big, mook body
> guard though he's actually a big teddy bear. He just doesn't express
> much when not in conversation. It probably doesn't help that he usually
> is crossing his arms and stands a bit like a body guard, giggle. My
> sister never had her teeth correctedm, and she's very self-conscious
> about it so she never smiles with her mouth open. She has very thin
> lips, and her mouth doesn't curve up when smiling, so when she smiles
> with her lips closed, it looks like a straight, thin line across her
> face. My dad, brother and sister make this really odd expression when
> excited or happy where they squint their eyes, scrunch their faces and
> hold their hands up close to their face. They literally aren't aware of
> what their doing, and all are sighted.
>
> I have numerous sighted friends who never pick up after their dogs,
> which is gross. And sadly, I've known plenty of people who pick their
> nose when the fancy takes them. And of course little kids do all these
> things, smile.
>
> You give me some behavior or expression a blind person does, and I
> guarantee I can give you an example of a sighted person who has done, or
> does, the same.
>
> Am I the only former sighted person here? LOL
>
> Sincerely,
> Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
> Read my blog at:
> http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
>
> "History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
> The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 05:10:45 +0000
> From: Tara Annis <tannis at afb.net>
> To: "nabs-l at nfbnet.org" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: [nabs-l] blind people being taught  social skills
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>
> Arielle, I do agree with you that  some of the time blind  people do
> certain "socially unacceptable" things out of lazieness as opposed to
> ignorance.  Yet, I do know for a fact that the situation I mentioned was
> out of ignorance; once I give all the details you guys wil understand.
> The  picking up after dog situation was where a girl and I were standing
> on campus  about 20 feet away from a  group of about 15 sighted students
> smoking.  We were in direct line of them, and the girl realizes her dog
> has went bathroom, turns to me and says, "hurry up, let's get out of
> here before  those people see us."  She didn't realize that they could
> see at that distance. I think  the fact they were all  talking to each
> other made her feel they were not focusing on her as well.  This girl
> has misunderstood about sight other times as well.  She  snuck soda into
> the movies, so she would not have to pay for the expensive ones at the
> theater.  The usher came down the row, and she tried to hide the can of
> soda, but only covered part of it with her hand.  (I can see a little
> bit, so saw this for myself.)  The usher came  up to her and told her to
> get rid of it; once he left she turned to me and said, "I don't know how
> he could tell I had this soda, I had it covered with my hands!"  She
> didn't realize that body position and one's angle to objects determines
> what can be seen.
>
> I'm not saying I'm better than her, for the fact I've   made social
> mistakes.  For example, I did not understand that people were  always
> watching my facial expression.  One time in choir my friends told me
> they watch me the whole time during this class, instead of what the
> teacher was writing on the blackboard, since I made interesting facial
> expressions.  They told me that everyone in the class except me had a
> bored look on their face, but I would randomly  smile really big for a
> few seconds, then go back to normal, then smile again a few minutes
> later.  (I found out this  is very common; many blind people   do this
> hwen  they are daydreaming.  For example, a blind girl I knew would have
> these same expressions when she listened to her CD player with the
> headphones, since she was in her own world, enjoying the music, and did
> not realize people around her were watching her expressions.)
>
> To let everyone know, though, that sighted people can make these
> mistakes as well, probably not as  often, but it still happens.  For
> example, a sighted person told me that a lot of   people  wil pick their
> noses when they are driving in their cars to work.  They do not realize
> that people in other vehicles aroudn them can see through their
> windshield.  The nose picker does not realize this because    they
> cannot imagine the visual perspective of other drivers; they only know
> what they are seeing, not  what others at different positions are
> seeing.
>
> I totally understand discussing this issue to  blind people has to be
> done correctly, and I think more research will  shed more light on the
> proper techniques to use in  an advanced social skills class.  I feel
> that keeping this  information could  cause more damage, though,
> especially for issues that canbe fixed without much hassle. Also,
> research needs to be conducted to determine statistically which
> behaviors are considered extremely negative.  Some of them are
> universal, as I said in the last message, such as masturbation in
> public.  Everyone will agree that this behaviour should not happen, and
> the blind person doing it should be alerted, taught how to fix the
> issue, since continuing to do  it would keep him from   making friends
> or getting a job.  Most would agree tha tnot telling him about would
> hurt him more in the long run.
> This research could also benefit sighted, since it would show where the
> public is lacking in understanding of disability, and more etiquette
> training to address these gaps in understanding could be fixed.
>
>
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